Language:
English
Year of publication:
2015
Titel der Quelle:
Journal of Genocide Research
Angaben zur Quelle:
17,2 (2015) 153-175
Keywords:
Wannsee-Konferenz
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
Abstract:
Contends that the Wannsee conference of January 1942 has to be regarded as one of a series of the Nazi meetings aiming to chart the urgent measures in the demographical and economical reshaping of the newly conquered "German East" and to prepare its territory for the "Germanization", i.e. for the mass settlement of Germans. The targeted populations, discussed at these meetings (the first of them was convened on 30 October 1940), were not only Jews, but also Poles, later Russians, Gypsies, etc. The initial plans to deport Jews from the Reich and Poles from the annexed parts of Poland clashed with the growing lack of workforce in the Reich in view of the escalating war in the East. Thus, when Heydrich and his accomplices at the Wannsee conference spoke on the annihilation of Jews through labor, they first and foremost regarded them as the necessary workforce, which, through its labor, would prepare the "German East" to the Nazi megalomaniacal settlement plans. Besides, the radical plan presented by Heydrich at the conference, gave him an opportunity to reassert his position vis-à-vis his rivals within and outside the SS and, despite the failures of previous resettlement programs, to place him at the centre of Himmler's living spave dystopia.
DOI:
10.1080/14623528.2015.1027074
URL:
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